


The Thrill of the Chase

by weakinteraction



Category: Star Wars (Marvel Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-04 12:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12771429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: Aphra finds herself with a price on her head, and lots of old "friends" coming out of the woodwork to try and claim it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [spookykingdomstarlight](https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/gifts).



> (AU in that it's only based on Tolvan's appearance in issues 3-6, because I haven't got hold of #14 yet.)

Aphra's first clue that there was something wrong came when Docking Control contacted her as she made her final approach. Jhanteros was one of this spiral arm's most notorious nests of smugglers and thieves; it didn't _have_ a Docking Control. You parked your spaceship where you liked and paid protection money to whichever of the local gangs was currently in the ascendancy in the hopes that it would still be where you parked it later, intact and still functional. If one group had consolidated power to the extent that they were trying to control space around the planet, rather than just a few square kilometres of landing strip, then there had been some major changes. Either that, or it was little more than an elaborate scam.

Still, it was nice to talk to another person. She had been alone for over a month in the Chirurgical Field, with only a bland computer voice to talk to as she went painstakingly from asteroid to asteroid as she searched for the Trove.

"Uh, yes, hi Docking Control, this is ..." she quickly flicked through the list of fake ship IDs she had built up over the years; even if there was a real Docking Control, they wouldn't be hooked up to the galaxy-wide databases "... _Precise Shot III_ , requesting permission to dock at Axinore Station."

"We're having difficulty reading your transponder, _Precise Shot III_."

"Oh, is it down again?" Aphra said. "That's one of the things I was hoping to deal with while I was here."

"There are no repair shops at Axinore Station," Docking Control said helpfully. "Perhaps you'd like to visit Weirmast Hub instead?"

Well, that settled it: definitely a scam.

"I'm meeting friends at Axinore," Aphra said. Which was true, apart from the "friends" part. The Bumani Syndicate didn't do friendship, even amongst its own people. "They should be able to help me get up and running."

"It would be highly advisable for you to come to Weirmast," Docking Control said. "We can offer you a full repair at low cost--"

"I'm sorry, Docking Control, I'm having trouble with the comm system as well; you're breaking up," Aphra said, as she hit the button to close the channel.

And once more, she was left in silence.

* * *

The second clue came as she was walking the short distance from where she had parked the ship to Geegan's Cantina, which proudly advertised itself as the best cantina in town. The claim was even accurate, given that it was also the only cantina in town.

As she walked, people would stop and look at her for a moment. This in and of itself wasn't all that unusual; she wasn't exactly unknown here, and many must have thought that her departure to the Chirurgical Field had been an excuse to hightail it for the other side of the galaxy, so surprise at seeing her again so soon was reasonable. The problem was that the look in their eyes wasn't exactly surprise.

Still, she didn't have much choice in the matter. She owed the Bumani a considerable amount of money, even by her standards. It had been a considerable amount of money even before the eye-gouging extra interest they had put on it when she had explained about the need to go on one more mission to actually locate the Trove. In fact, if she was being honest with herself, it was probably more in the realms of "a great deal of money" than "a considerable amount".

At least this time, she actually had something to give them. So why was everyone looking at her as though she was on the way to her own funeral?

* * *

The third thing that made Aphra uneasy was the way the waitdroid kept fussing around her table, asking her if she needed a refill when it had only brought her drink two minutes ago, obsessively cleaning one particular patch of the metal table until it was shining brightly. It looked like an older protocol model that had fallen on hard times, its arms mismatched and one photoreceptor constantly seeming to be in danger of falling out.

"Are you sure I can't get you anything else, master?" it said, for the sixth time.

"I'm just waiting for my ... friend," Aphra said. "I'll be fine, thank you."

"Very well," the droid said, and went back to polishing that same spot. Aphra could see her face in it: she took advantage of the opportunity to arrange her face into an appropriately triumphant-yet-

"Here's my friend now, in fact," Aphra said, as she saw Illiona squeeze herself through the cantina doors, holding her trunk high to avoid it dragging on the floor. Her arrival caused a momentary hush: the arrival of a Bumani representative wasn't exactly a day-to-day event.

* * *

The fourth clue, the one which finally made Aphra really start to pay attention to her instincts, was the way the tips of Illiona's bifurcated trunk continually flickered back and forth while she was talking, a sure sign that the usually unflappable Proboscoan was nervous. That didn't make sense to Aphra, as from her point of view Illiona held all the cards here.

Aphra's hand found her blaster even as she continued talking. "Something wrong? I know you can tell they're genuine." With her other hand, she spread out the smaller finds she had brought with her to the meeting across the table.

"Oh, yes, of course," Illiona said. "I would never doubt your honesty, Aphra." She cleared her throat. "And you say the rest are ... aboard your ship?"

"That's right," Aphra said.

"And I suppose your ship still has that biometric encryption you installed last year?"

"That's no problem," Aphra said. "I'll take you there now to collect them if you'd like."

"Oh, no, let's not trouble ourselves with that," Illiona said. She sounded almost wistful. "These will have to do, I suppose."

Aphra's eyes narrowed involuntarily. "What do you mean, 'these will have to do'?"

Illiona's only response was to give a high fluting whistle, a noise her trunk didn't really look like it would be able to make. A squad of four thugs burst in from outside, all training their blaster rifles on Aphra.

"I promise you," Aphra said urgently. "What I've got on board the ship is worth more than whatever they're paying you. Whoever _they_ are."

Illiona laughed at that, and not kindly. "Oh, Aphra, things have changed. Things have changed a great deal."

"Indeed they have," said the waitdroid, reappearing at the table. Suddenly, there was something very familiar about its voice. "Doctor Aphra is under _our_ ... protection."

"Trip!" Aphra said. "I've _never_ been so happy to see you. And Beetee, you've had some upgrades!" The blastmech droid was hovering down into the cantina through an open skylight, apparently using some sort of internal antigravity device: there were no flames to be seen anywhere. He probably had rocket thrusters, just not for flying.

"What do you mean, 'under your protection'?" Illiona said. "You're just a pair of droids."

"BT-1, would you like to demonstrate to this particularly _thick-skinned_ organic what we mean?" Aphra wasn't sure that Illiona would pick up on the subtext that Trip would enjoy cutting through that thick skin, but it wasn't lost on her.

Before she could say anything, though, Beetee fired a cluster of micromunitions that hit each of the four thugs around the table precisely.

"Doctor Aphra is under our protection," Triple Zero repeated, voice all mild reasonableness even as everyone else in the cantina ran for the exit.

When Illiona realised they were going to let her live, she stood up. "Very well. But be warned: you have made a powerful enemy today. The Bumani Syndicate will--"

"Oh, I do enjoy a good vendetta!" Triple Zero said. "And so does Beetee, don't you, Beetee? I hope your subordinates are good at screaming as they die. I do enjoy a good scream."

Illiona stormed out.

"Trip, I would hug you ... if I didn't know how much you would hate it," Aphra added hurriedly. "And that you have poison darts concealed within at least 60% of your digits."

"Indeed, that would be a most inadvisable course of action," Triple Zero said. He began to remove the waitdroid disguise, sighing heavily with each piece removed.

Beetee hovered down to the ground, whistling something long and complicated to Trip.

"Yes, you're right, we should explain to the good doctor what's happening. After all, we don't want her thinking she's been rescued, do we?"

"I'm ... not?" Aphra was suddenly aware that she could see an open blasterport in the reflection from the shiny part of the table. The shiny part that was so shiny because Trip had been polishing and polishing it. The shiny part that would definitely reflect a blaster bolt straight into her brain.

"Did your friend not explain the circumstances? Oh dear, how remiss of her. Show her, Beetee."

With a grumbling beep, Beetee projected a holo of the current state of the galactic bounty market onto the table in front of her.

The biggest icons with the biggest numbers of credits floating underneath them were all portraits of her.


	2. Chapter 2

"I think I should be flattered," Aphra said. "I mean, one or two low-value bounties, that just comes with the territory. But now I'm in the big leagues."

"I was hoping for 'terrified'," Trip said. "But you never were one of those boring organics whose reactions were _completely_ predictable."

"I don't understand, though--"

"Show her the other one," Trip said wearily.

Beetee's projection switched to an all-too-familiar sight: a spherical shape with a large depression a third of the way up its flank. The view was from the surface of some planet or moon, seen through a blue twilight.

"While you've been cloistered away in the Chirurgical Field, there have been ... developments. These images have a timestamp of three weeks ago."

"You're telling me!" Aphra said. "That's the Death Star." She peered into the image. "Or _a_ Death Star. A new one, they haven't finished building it."

"On the contrary, it's fully operational," Trip said. "Or rather," he added, as it suddenly exploded, "it _was_ fully operational. Briefly."

"So the Rebels have scored another victory," Aphra said slowly. "That doesn't explain why there are so many bounties out for me all of a sudden."

"Not just 'another victory'," Trip said. "The Emperor was aboard at the time. As was our erstwhile employer, Lord Vader."

"Oh," Aphra said flatly. "I see."

"The Empire isn't finished, of course," Trip said. "Or rather, it is finished, but there are large chunks of it that haven't realised that yet. Many of these bounties have been put out by admirals, planetary governors and the like, trying to consolidate their power. Many of them even want you captured alive; they seem to believe that you might have access to information that Lord Vader kept hidden from official channels. I can't possibly imagine why. On the other hand, some of them are just officers you've annoyed over the years, freed now from having to explain their interest in you to Lord Vader."

"Vader put a bounty out on me himself, that one time."

"Indeed," Trip said. "You must have been pleased to know that he cared."

"What are the others?"

Beetee flipped back to the holo of all the bounties. "Well, you do owe a lot of people a lot of money," Trip said.

"No wonder Illiona was disappointed she wouldn't get more artefacts before capturing me," Aphra said. She studied the bounties for a moment. "But none from the Rebels?"

"The--" Trip made a coughing noise that managed to be both ostentatious and dismissive at the same time "--'New Republic' obviously don't consider you a threat."

 _Or Sana's looking out for me,_ Aphra thought.

"So you and the Bumani have been here waiting for me to return?" Aphra said.

"And a number of others," Trip said. "You will be happy to know that we've already taken care of all the other competitors we became aware of."

"I'm actually a little surprised people thought I wouldn't just run away."

"I only said you weren't _completely_ predictable," Triple Zero said.

"So what happens now? Who are you two and the Son-tuul Pride going to sell me to?"

"Ah," Trip said. "I see you are labouring under a misapprehension. Beetee and I parted ways with the Pride some time ago. It was a mutual decision."

"An amicable divorce, eh?"

"I would not describe anything about that particular situation as 'amicable', no."

"Oh, very well, take me to your ship."

Beetee beeped. "Yes, Beetee," Trip said. "You're right. I think it is time for us to have a new vehicle. The transport is effective, but it lacks a certain _panache_."

Aphra groaned. "You're going to capture me _and_ steal my ship?"

"Well," Trip said, all mild reasonableness once more. "It's not as though you'll be needing it."

* * *

The walk back to the landing strip was very different to the walk from it. The streets were deserted; news of what had happened at the Cantina had obviously travelled fast. There was also the part where, instead of thinking she had finally bought her way out of trouble, Aphra knew she was heading deep into it once again.

She tried to make small talk with the droids, but Trip's only real topic of conversation was trying to decide which was his favourite out of all the gruesome murders he'd performed, and Aphra was just a little bit too concerned that he was effectively regaling her with tales of her own possible eventual fate, if she decided to try to make a break for it.

Eventually, they reached the _Ark Angel_. While she'd been at the cantina, someone had stacked up row upon row of crates either side of it.

"If you would do the honours," Trip said.

But just as Aphra was reaching out her hand to the palmprint sensor, the crates burst open and a battalion of battledroids emerged from them. They were old Trade Federation models, from the earliest days of the Separatist movement; several generations behind the ones she had provided to Vader. But in these sorts of numbers they were still a threat, assuming whoever was controlling them hadn't left their central command vulnerable. In one rippling motion, like a wave going around a crowd getting ready to watch a big arena fight, each of them cocked their blaster rifles and trained them on Aphra, Triple Zero and Beetee.

Beetee whistled urgently to Triple Zero.

"Undoubtedly you could take them all out," Trip replied. "I'm just worried about the collateral damage. There may be a better way out of this yet." He stepped forward. "Excuse me, which of you is the designated command unit? That is how these things work, isn't it?"

"Roger roger," said one of the droids, stepping forward.

"Are you authorised to disclose the identity of your master?" Triple Zero said.

"Negative."

"Oh, good," Triple Zero said. "Extracting it from your memory core will be much more entertaining."

In unison, half of the droids swung their blaster rifles round minutely, so that almost all of the droids were now covering Trip specifically. There were still plenty of muzzles pointed directly at Aphra though.

"I'm sure we can work this out reasonably," came a human voice from somewhere nearby. "I'm only interested in Aphra. You can have her ship and the artefacts."

There was something about the voice, something familiar. She'd already failed to recognise Trip in disguise today; who was this?

A figure came around from behind the crates: tall; cropped white hair -- it had been longer before, Aphra remembered, not _long_ , but not closely shaven like this; black cybernetic unit encasing her neck. The green coat -- not exactly standard officer issue, but within the permitted bounds of variation -- hung around her rather more stylishly than Aphra would have thought possible.

"Cute Imperial Captain!" Aphra said.

"Tolvan," Cute Imperial Captain said, raising her own blaster now. "My _name_ is Tolvan." Behind her, the droids looked on impassively.

"Right," Aphra said carefully. "Captain Tolvan. I remember now."

"Not Captain any more."

Aphra tilted her head marginally. "So you are just another bounty hunter. How did that happen?"

"The Empire might have rescued me, but they weren't going to take me back. I had failed in my mission. I had been ... compromised."

"So this is personal?"

"There's nothing wrong with enjoying your work," Tolvan said.

"The smart move would definitely be to kill me, but you could have done that already by now." Aphra took one hand away from gripping her blaster to gesture at the droids. "Or have had them do it."

"What's your point?"

"You think I'm cute," Aphra said.

"I think you're worth substantially more to me alive. I assume your droid friends feel the same way, or they'd have already killed you too. I really doubt you're going to claim that _they_ think you're 'cute'."

"The very thought," Triple Zero said with a shudder of distaste. "But if I might interject ..." Aphra wasn't sure what he was about to say: it could be anything from an offer to split the proceeds to some terrible threat uttered in the mildest of tones. But she definitely wasn't expecting what did emerge from his vocabulator: a high-pitched sequence of screeching, hissing noises, like a digital scream.

The battledroids around them drooped listlessly, heads slumping downwards and arms flopping to the sides, their rifles help limply. Tolvan grabbed a control device from her pocket and started jabbing at it furiously.

"I _am_ fluent in six million types of communication," Triple Zero observed. "Baktoid Combat Automata machine code just happens to be one of them. I am glad I got the intonation on that final part right. Just imagine if I had ordered self-destruct rather than a simple shut down!"

Tolvan smiled. "Funnily enough, you've just made things a lot easier for me." From another pocket, she produced an ion grenade and threw it down on the floor in front of Triple Zero and Beetee.

As the blast went off, she grabbed hold of Aphra. Aphra leaned into it, thrusting her elbow back into Tolvan's side. Tolvan lost her grip momentarily and Aphra began to run away. Tolvan lunged after her; Aphra turned, raising her right arm to try and block. As Tolvan grappled with her, Aphra's tattoo briefly made contact with the cybernetics around Tolvan's neck.

Something sparked between them, sending them both flying backwards from the altercation. They looked at one another in shock: that sort of thing really wasn't supposed to happen. Aphra felt as though her whole arm itched, the implant performing its most intrusive level of self-diagnostic in the aftermath.

Suddenly, Triple Zero made a throat clearing noise. "You really do have a lot to learn about assassin models," he said, "if you think that they don't have adequate countermeasures to such primitive anti-droid weaponry. We will take our leave now, Captain Tolvan."

* * *

Once they were in hyperspace, it almost felt as though things were back to the old days: if Krrsantan had been there, it would have completed the picture perfectly. The last Aphra had heard, he had defied his exile and returned to Kashyyyk, to seek out revenge on all the many and varied Wookiees he felt had wronged him. The Xonti brothers hadn't lasted long under his training regimen, in the end.

But there were crucial differences, too: in the old days, she'd had the various safeguards she'd programmed in to rely on to keep her safe. Now, there was only the fact that she was supposedly worth more alive than dead to rely on, which hardly seemed sufficient in the face of Trip and Beetee's general propensity towards mayhem. On the other hand, they'd let both Illiona and Tolvan go.

She decided to press her luck and see if she could find out more about what was going on. "You let two people live today," she said to Trip.

"Correction," said Trip. "Three. You are forgetting your good self."

"Well, OK, technically, yes. But why? Why not remove your competitors entirely?"

"The Bumani Syndicate is more than simply a competitor," Triple Zero said. "We may well wish to do business with them at some future point. Dispatching a few of their hired mercenaries is one thing, but a high-level representative such as Mistress Illiona deserves a certain level of respect."

"And Tolvan?"

"Captain Tolvan is a fellow bounty hunter," Trip said indignantly. "There is a _code_ about these things."

"Are you sure I can't persuade you to let me go?" Aphra said. She gestured around the hold. "These artefacts are worth quite a bit." A few hours earlier, she'd thought of them as representing "a great deal of money". Now that she'd seen the size of the bounties on her head, she was rounding it back down.

"Remuneration is only a small part of our motivation. The thrill of the chase, Doctor Aphra, that's what it's all about."

"But if remuneration is only a small part, then why are you bothering to keep me alive?"

"When I said 'a small part'," Trip said, "I meant that it has a relatively low weighting in the matrix we use to decide which jobs to take. However, in your particular case, that low weighting is multiplied by a rather eye-wateringly large number of credits and so is sufficient to sway our behaviour."

Aphra said nothing.

"I'm sorry," Trip said. "Were you thinking that there would be an 'old times' sake' component to the matrix? That would be needlessly sentimental, don't you think?"

* * *

Trip was happy to give her the run of the ship, once Beetee had locked her out of the navicomputer. Apparently it would be some days before they reached their destination. Given which of the people interested in her capture were on the other side of the galaxy, that didn't bode particularly well. At best, she would be questioned by some Imperials, who would be disappointed in her answers even if she was truthful. Then again, she didn't have to be truthful. Maybe she could convince them that she did know about some secret plan or other of Vader's, and that for some reason they would have to let her go personally. They'd send someone with her, of course -- probably a whole unit -- but there were possibilities there that didn't apply to some of the other outcomes.

She tried to sleep, but found that her tattoo was still itching after its encounter with Tolvan's implants. That was all very strange. Perhaps, Aphra thought, the ion grenade had done something that had lowered their own defences. Eventually, some time in the small hours of the morning, the itching abated, the self-diagnostic reporting that all systems were operating within nominal parameters.

Aphra curled up on her bunk, still clothed, and tried to sleep.

_Day Fifty-nine_

_The power cell in the transmitter is finally running down. I should dread this, as it means the chance of rescue diminishes considerably if my signal has not already been detected. However, given that the droid still insists on talking to me from within its radically reassembled body, I am glad of it. The constant complaints about its ignominious fate I can take. It's when it pretends to still be infected by the Rur entity that I can't stand it. But what if it's not pretending? What if my distress call is actually sending out a technopathic consciousness into the networks of the galaxy?_

_No, I won't take responsibility for that. It was_ her _who released him. The one who stranded me here._

_Damn you, Aphra._

Aphra startled awake.

The dream had been extraordinarily vivid, and yet nothing like her usual dreams, which were full of colourful imagery, constantly shifting so that often even her own face seemed unfamiliar to her. This one had been almost exactly a sound recording. Interrogating her implant, she discovered that that was exactly what it was. What she had experienced in her dream was just a fragment of the journal she had kept during her stay on the planet, presumably mostly to keep track of the passing of the time.

At the moment of connection, her implant had downloaded from Tolvan's.

That _really_ wasn't supposed to happen.

Had it worked in the opposite direction? Aphra wondered. She wasn't sure she liked the idea of Tolvan having access to the data stored in her implant, albeit it was much less ... personal than that. She tried to reassure herself that it was just her own implant's special abilities that had made the difference.

* * *

Aphra's resolve not to listen to the content of Tolvan's journal lasted exactly half a day. Given that she was effectively professionally nosy, she thought that was fairly good going.

Most of it was very tedious. For several weeks, she had maintained it as a report to her superiors in the event of her eventual retrieval, including deeply tedious musings about the best positioning of garrisons and patrols in the unbelievably unlikely event that the place ever became strategically important in the future. It was only as her hopes for rescue had faded that it became more personal. That was when the "Damn you, Aphra"s started.

Aphra found herself arguing with the voice in her head. It was her dad who had been obsessed with finding Rur, after all. The fact that Aphra had then switched the real Rur for a fake one before putting him into quarantine, and spent considerable time trying to find a buyer, was irrelevant here, she told herself; Tolvan had no way of knowing those things, stuck as she was on the planet. And yet she clearly identified Aphra as the architect of her downfall.

And she had been rescued, after all. That was obvious from the whole "now running around the galaxy as a snappily dressed bounty hunter" thing. Presumably that bit was coming quite soon, though the ever-increasing lengths of the entries meant that it might still be a while. Or perhaps the journal would just stop suddenly, with no final entry, because why would she need one?

Aphra didn't get a chance to find out, however. Halfway through Day Sixty-four, the ship juddered out of hyperspace in a very uncharacteristic way. Aphra jumped to her feet and ran to the cockpit.

"We haven't arrived already," she said. "You said it would be days. And the Ark Angel flies better than that, even without my skilled hands at the controls."

Triple Zero gestured in front of them. Almost completely filling the view was a huge freighter that looked like nothing more than a conglomeration of boxes stuck on to one another at random, as though it had been assembled by a small child with no particular aptitude for engineering.

"How did a ship like that get hold of interdictor equipment?" Aphra asked. "Who are they anyway?"

"To your first question," Trip said, "I have no more information than you do. Indeed, given that I know the answer to the second question, I am even more puzzled than you."

"Trip," Aphra said, "just tell me. _Who are they?_ "

" _That_ ," Trip said, "is a vessel of the Son-tuul Pride."


	3. Chapter 3

They watched as the Son-tuul vessel slowly tractored them in.

"Have you opened a comm channel?" Aphra asked.

"They are not responding," Triple Zero said. "But then they have little reason to."

"There must be a way out of this," Aphra said. "Just let me think ..."

Beetee whistled enthusiastically.

"A fine suggestion indeed, Beetee." He turned to Aphra, his photoreceptors lighting up delightedly.

"What did he say?" Aphra said.

"It is probable that they are hunting for you, as are many others in the galaxy at the moment. They will be unaware of our presence on board the ship. We will secrete ourselves aboard, and then, when the moment is right, _kill them all_. It will be glorious."

"Things really didn't end well between you, did they?"

"We should have realised from the name," Trip said. " _Pride_. They had far too much of it. They didn't like taking orders from droids."

Beetee whistled again.

"Quite, Beetee. It really was most prejudiced of them." He turned back to Aphra. "They began giving us false information. It all led to a rather ... sticky situation on a swamp world."

Beetee blooped.

"Yes, I have always admired your arsenal but it did prove particularly useful for removing ourselves from the stomach of that kilometre-long worm."

Aphra looked back out at the Son-tuul ship ahead. "So, if you two are going to hide, what do I do?"

"Why, surrender to them, of course. I'm sure you'll find it relatively straightforward."

* * *

As the _Ark Angel_ was finally drawn into the hangar, Aphra stood in the airlock, blaster in hand. Apparently looking as though she was willing to defend herself was a necessary part of the subterfuge; the Pride would become suspicious if their prey was _too_ easily caught. She had considered telling the Pride about the droids hidden on board the ship, but she doubt that would end well for anyone, really. If she had to be captured as a bounty, she still fancied her chances rather better with Trip and Beetee than with anyone else.

Trip would have accused her of being sentimental, she knew.

When the airlock opened, she was unprepared for the sight of Tolvan at the head of half a dozen Son-tuul hunters.

"Ah," said Aphra. "Your decades old droids failed you so you went for something even more useless."

Some of the Son-tuul growled at that, but Tolvan shushed them. She gestured for them to come forward, and into the ship. Aphra noticed that they were wearing chunky backpacks connected up to their rifles by a mess of twisted, tangled cables. Not part of any standard weaponry. She would have thought they were flamethrowers, but there was no tube big enough to deliver the fuel.

Tolvan remained behind, training her blaster directly at Aphra's temple as she searched her.

"What's going on?" Aphra asked her.

"You'll see," Tolvan said.

There were a few excited shouts from somewhere within the ship, and then the lights dimmed momentarily.

"Oh," Aphra said. "Heavy EMP weapons."

"The Son-tuul have been busy working on a plan for what to do if your friends ever came back."

"So when you knew that I'd been captured by them, you went and made a deal. I suppose you supplied the interdiction equipment."

"I still have some contacts in the Empire," Tolvan said. "Or what's left of it."

The hunters returned, a pair of them carrying Trip's inert body and another one pushing Beetee along, grinning as he did. Tolvan yanked Aphra out of their way.

"They'll reactivate," Aphra said. "Their systems are tough."

"Oh, we know that," Tolvan said. "In fact, my new friends are rather looking forward to the prospect."

As Tolvan led her out of the ship, she saw what Tolvan meant: two huge EMP projectors were set up at the far side of the hangar. The Son-tuul left the two droids in front of them, with one Pride member manning each of the projector controls. Presumably as soon as they woke up, they'd be subjected to another blast.

"And what about me?"

"Oh, we're going to sell you to the highest bidder," Tolvan said. "Luckily for you, at the moment that's still someone who wants you alive."

* * *

They put her in a small cargo hold that had been hastily retrofitted into a cell. Most of the time, they left her alone, apart from when they brought her meagre but nutritious rations four times a day -- they obviously meant it about keeping her alive. The leader of this particular group -- not anyone very senior within the Pride overall, as far as Aphra could tell -- insisted on coming in for a gloat every once in a while, but otherwise she was left alone. Once every ten hours or so, the lights dimmed for a moment, presumably as one or other of the droids in the hangar rebooted, and was fried again.

They didn't give her anything to read, or a holo to watch, so her only entertainment, such as it was, was Tolvan's journal.

On the third day, Tolvan was the one to bring her the first meal. Aphra noticed that her implant was starting to itch again. Perhaps it had been doing it before, too, when they'd first brought her aboard, but with everything going on she hadn't noticed.

When Tolvan left, she accessed the diagnostic. It had managed to establish a link with Tolvan's cyberware. It was programmed to try to do that sort of thing automatically, but most systems on board a starship were well protected against such attacks. And Tolvan's should have been even more so; whatever had happened during the fight on Jhanteros had left it vulnerable.

And Tolvan's cyberware had a link to the ship's systems. That was about as much as her implant had been able to find out, before she'd left.

The next time Tolvan came by, Aphra decided to try keeping her there for longer, to see what more her implant might be able to do.

"I'm sorry, you know," Aphra said as Tolvan was about to leave.

"I very much doubt that," Tolvan said. But then, she added, "What for, exactly?"

"Stranding you on that planet," Aphra said. "It can't have been easy."

Tolvan sat down on the small chair opposite Aphra's; Aphra suppressed her glee as the implant started to drink in data. "In my second year at the Academy, I had to complete a survival exercise on a jungle planet with predators you wouldn't believe. The average number of cadets who die during that exercise each year is ten. In my year, it was twenty three."

"Uh huh," Aphra said. "Whereas in comparison, the place I left you was temperate and full of easygoing wildlife that was easy to catch." In fact, the journal was full of frustrations about how elusive the small theropods that provided the best meat were.

"What you should really apologise for is leaving me alive at all," Tolvan said. "That's what ruined my chances of being accepted back."

"Yes, I'm so sorry I didn't kill you. I would have if you weren't cute."

"I don't believe that for a moment," Tolvan said. "You like to pretend that you're ruthless, and I won't deny I've seen you in a fight for your life. But you won't kill someone in cold blood."

"Not someone who's cute anyway."

Tolvan snorted derisively, and got up to leave.

"My dad was right," Aphra said. "I do have terrible taste in women."

As the implant streamed data about the ship's schematics to her, Aphra smiled to herself; she was getting under Tolvan's skin in more ways than one.

* * *

Tolvan's visits became more frequent after that; whether that was by her design, or the Son-tuul taking a decreasing amount of interest in her welfare, Aphra wasn't sure.

Sometimes, she wasn't in the mood to talk, but other times Aphra managed to get her started on tales of her tactical genius, or how she had been robbed of her rightful place in the Imperial hierarchy. That wasn't entirely about Aphra; things had already been going wrong for Tolvan before that, despite her early greatness. Yavin IV had been a punishment duty, it seemed. But Tolvan had been convinced that she would work her way back up, until Aphra had stranded her.

And every time she listened to all the complaints, Aphra's implant cracked more of the security protocols.

One time, Tolvan even asked her about her implant. "Does it work?"

"It's very boring," Aphra lied smoothly. "If it would help me escape, I would have done, wouldn't I?"

"That's not what I meant," Tolvan said. "Does it ... still work?"

"Since we ...?"

"Since whatever that was, yes."

"Yes," said Aphra. "Why, doesn't yours?"

"Most of the time," Tolvan said. "But there are occasional ... glitches."

"Nope, nothing like that's happened to me. Maybe you should go to a qualified cyberneticist. I'm sure with your share of my bounty you'll be able to afford their fee."

Tolvan left in a huff. But as she left, Aphra's implant registered that it had finally figured out enough to put her plan into action.

The next time Tolvan came, things would be different.

* * *

But the next time Tolvan came, it was the middle of the night. Aphra woke up instantly when she turned the lights on.

"I was trying to sleep, Tolvan," Aphra said.

"Come with me, now," Tolvan said.

"What's this all about?" Aphra said.

"The truth is, the Son-tuul and I don't quite see eye to eye," Tolvan said.

"Oh? It seemed to me you were all getting along swimmingly when you ambushed us," Aphra said. "It was just like they were your little gang of Stormtroopers all over again."

"That's part of the problem," Tolvan said. "They don't like taking orders from outsiders. It was bad enough when those droids of yours took over their operation for a while. But an ex-Imperial? They were never going to tolerate that for long."

"So you want to kidnap me from my kidnappers," Aphra said. "What's to stop me screaming the place down and getting them to come running? I wouldn't be any worse off, but you would be."

"There's a new offer on the table. A Hutt called Noxxa is manoeuvring for Jabba's place on their Council, and part of that involves laying claim to be the inheritor of Jabba's estate." Tolvan sighed. "You have no idea how much I miss the days when I didn't have to know anything at all about Hutt politics."

"And Jabba's estate includes my debt."

"Exactly so," Tolvan said.

"And in a demonstration of how sincere he is about being Jabba's heir, he's doubtless put an outrageous price on my head."

"Double the highest other offer," Tolvan said. "And none of this 'preferably alive' or 'dead or alive, we don't care', either. Very definitely dead."

"Oh," Aphra said. "So why don't you want to go along with this?"

"Would you believe it if I said I had ethical issues with it?"

"I'd find that about as likely as you finding me cute."

Tolvan rolled her eyes. "Believe whatever you need to believe if it'll get you to come with me, _now_." She stepped outside, gesturing for Aphra to follow.

They stood, Tolvan outside the cell, Aphra still inside. They were both close enough that the door sensor realised it should stay open.

"Come _on_ ," Tolvan said, beckoning again for Aphra to come out of the cell.

"You know, I really wish you'd explained everything to me a bit earlier," Aphra said, as she stepped out of the cell.

"Why?" Tolvan asked.

When the door of the cell was only a little way off the ground -- exactly the sort of distance a small, but undeniably cute, rogue archaeologist could squeeze through -- the lights went out.

In the darkness, Aphra leapt across the table and wrestled Tolvan to the ground. She knew that it was only the element of surprise that had allowed her to overcome Tolvan, and she had to press the advantage. She grappled at her side for the blaster Tolvan must surely be carrying.

Before she could wrestle it out of its holster, though, Tolvan grabbed hold of her arm and in one smooth motion twisted it behind her back and forced her into a standing position. Then she pushed her away and pulled her blaster, holding it levelly in front of her. In the minimal light afforded by the starlight coming in through a distant porthole, the barrel glinted dangerously.

"You were planning to escape," Tolvan said.

"Whatever happened to our cybernetics on Jhanteros didn't just affect you," Aphra admitted. "I've been able to reverse engineer your access codes and take control of the systems. Specifically, the EMPs that your friends are using to torture their erstwhile masters. Make it general rather than focused, and it's got enough to fry the primary systems of the entire ship, at least temporarily. Power goes out when the door's nearly closed, I sneak out underneath and make a run for it," Aphra said. "If you'd been by yourself, you'd have been around the corner and it would all have worked perfectly."

"I very much doubt that," Tolvan said.

There was a scuttling noise, as though of claws rasping against metal. It seemed to shudder throughout the structure of the entire ship.

"What was that?" Aphra said.

"You said the EMP affected the _entire_ ship?" Tolvan asked.

"Of course," Aphra said. "Who knows where they're hiding redundant systems."

"Including the sublevels?"

"Yes," Aphra said. "The. Entire. Ship."

"You're an even bigger fool than I thought," Tolvan said. "Did you really think a Son-tuul ship wouldn't be carrying any game?"


	4. Chapter 4

Emergency power returned; a deep klaxon began to sound and alert lights began to spin, painting the scene in stripes of red light. Tolvan kept her blaster steadily trained on Aphra.

Somewhere below them, and definitely not as far away as Aphra would have ideally liked, there came a series of overlapping guttural roars.

"Exactly how many of those things were they carrying?" Aphra said.

"Just the one," Tolvan said. "But it has a _lot_ of heads."

"You're not very good at being reassuring."

"I'm not trying to be," Tolvan said. "Right, this changes things. Get back in your cell. I'll come back and get you when this is over."

"Are you kidding me?" Aphra said. "You can't leave me in there like a little gift-wrapped treat for that thing." She saw a flicker in Tolvan's eyes, hastily suppressed. "I'm fairly sure 'dead or alive' doesn't count if it's 'well, if you want to catch this monster, you can recover her partially digested remains'."

Tolvan sighed deeply. "Fine. But don't try anything else."

"Of course not," Aphra said, putting her hands up.

Tolvan jabbed the blaster into Aphra's back. "This way," she said.

"The hangar's that way," Aphra said. At Tolvan's expression, she added, "Of _course_ I downloaded the schematics. I was supposed to be escaping solo, after all."

"We need to go to Security Control first, override the access systems."

"Huh, I hadn't thought of that," Aphra said.

"So your plan was to get to your ship and then sit inside it waiting to be recaptured?"

"I would have thought of something! But isn't Security Control going to be rather busy, what with the escaped monster?"

"We'll calculate that jump when we reach the waypoint," Tolvan said. "Now move."

* * *

Actually walking through the ship, Aphra found it was even more of a labyrinth than the floorplans had let on, corridors twisting this way and that, and with frequent areas where she had to climb between one level and another. Whoever had thrown this vessel together clearly hadn't been a big believer in the usefulness of elevators.

Occasionally, a member of the Pride would run past toting a blaster rifle. Mostly, Aphra and Tolvan were ignored; the combination of fear at the creature being loose and excitement at the chance to hunt meant that they seem satisfied that Tolvan had things under control. Obviously her disagreement with them over who to sell Aphra to hadn't yet reached the level where they treated her as an enemy. One who did become suspicious received a swift blow to the back of his neck from Tolvan and crumpled in a heap.

"Remind me not to get on your bad side," Aphra said.

"You _are_ on my bad side," Tolvan reminded her. "Now move."

The next set of roars they heard were a lot closer.

"OK, new plan," Tolvan said. She got a faraway look in her eyes as she communed with the ship's computer. "It's right between us and Security Control."

"Well, then, at least maybe it will finish everyone off for us."

"And then helpfully fall asleep because it's filled itself up? I don't think so." Tolvan said. "How _would_ you have got out of the hangar?"

"I'm not like you," Aphra said. "I don't do strategy and tactics and ... whatever. I mean, I try. But what I'm _really_ good at is improvisation when everything's gone wrong. Ask me again when it really matters."

There was another multiple roar, much closer this time.

Tolvan's eyes glazed over again. "OK, the good news is that it's not between us and Security Control any more. The bad news is, it's coming right for us." She tugged on Aphra's hand and dragged her away, leading her on a complicated route through the belly of the ship.

The monster was fast, though. As they reached an intersection, the roaring heads at the front of its long, sinuous body started snapping around the corner. Aphra could see now that it was faintly ophidian, but with multiple pairs of clawed legs that propelled it onwards through the corridors at great speed -- the source of the scuttling noise they had heard.

Tolvan fired off a shot, but that only seemed to enrage it. They ran, but they knew there was no way they could outrun it.

"Wait!" Aphra said, diving down a side corridor when she saw a control panel. "Come on, come on," she muttered to herself, hoping that her implant could slice it with the knowledge it had gained via Tolvan.

"What are you doing?" Tolvan shouted, but she stayed with Aphra as the creature approached, firing off one useless blaster bolt after another.

" _There_ we go," Aphra said. The interface blossomed into life, showing a map of all the bulkheads in the ship. "Give me a moment ..." She started trying to work out which bulkheads to open and close to channel it away from them, starting with closing the one in front of them.

"No, no, no." Tolvan pushed her aside and started jabbing at the panel herself, reversing Aphra's work.

"What are you doing?" Aphra said. "You're leaving it coming right for us."

"Do you trust me?" Tolvan said.

"No!"

Tolvan grabbed hold of Aphra again, and they sprinted along the corridors. The creature followed, Tolvan still firing off the occasional shot to make sure that it did.

Eventually, Aphra realised what she was up to. There was one big central cargo elevator on board the ship, and Tolvan had created a path straight to its shaft.

The only difficult part was going to be getting the monster to fall in without going down there themselves, or being eaten first.

With their back to the long drop, Tolvan said, "Do you trust me?"

"It doesn't look like I have a lot of choice," Aphra said, as they heard the creature round the final corner.

"Come and get us," Tolvan said quietly.

As the monster leaped towards them, Tolvan grabbed hold of Aphra with one hand and the service ladder on the side of the elevator shaft with the other, propelling herself backwards so that they swung outwards just far enough for the creature to miss them and tumble all the way down to the bottom of the ship, ironically returning to the sublevels where it had been kept.

Aphra jumped free back into the corridor, and helped Tolvan down.

"You saved me," Aphra said. "And when I found the control panel, you could have left that thing to eat me," she went on. "You probably _should_ have done. It would have been the smart move."

"You said it yourself," Tolvan said. "No one's going to pay for your partially digested remains."

"No bounty can be worth enough to risk your life like that."

"Does it matter? I won the gamble."

"I think you did it because you think I'm cute."

"Ah, yes, and therefore instead of a quick death I should abandon you to some sort of nightmare scenario. That's the Aphra-approved methodology, after all."

"So ... you _do_ think I'm cute," Aphra said.

"Maybe I do. But we still need to get to the hangar and off this ship. Then we can argue about whether you're cute _enough_ for me not to sell you anyway."

* * *

After a brief stop in Security Control -- the Son-tuul there had, in fact, been conveniently eaten -- they made their way to the hangar. The Son-tuul taking their turn at the EMP projectors -- useless now anyway, after Aphra had overloaded them -- had been called away by the emergency.

"Come on, help me with these two," Aphra said, beginning to lug Trip's lifeless form towards the _Ark Angel_.

"Are you joking? They're homicidal."

Aphra gave her a look.

" _Psychopathically_ homicidal," Tolvan said.

"You claim ethical issues about selling me to Noxxa the Hutt, but don't believe in the bounty hunters' code?"

"If there is such a thing, it doesn't say anything about not leaving people -- or droids -- to their fate," Tolvan said.

"We're not getting out of here except in my ship," Aphra said. "And I'm not leaving without them."

"Damn you, Aphra," Tolvan said, as she picked up Triple Zero's feet.

Which of course was when he startled to life. "Unhand me this instant!" he said, kicking and flailing his arms. It was all very undignified.

Aphra helped him to his feet. "We were rescuing you," she said. "Honestly, we were."

"Focus your attentions on Beetee," Trip said. "He still seems to be suffering the after-effects of his most recent blast. This has been a very trying few days for both of us."

* * *

In the cockpit of the _Ark Angel_ , the Son-tuul vessel receding behind them, Aphra, Tolvan and the droids all stared at one another.

"You don't have to sell me at all, you know," Aphra said. "Just throwing that out there as a possibility to consider."

"We would be happy to share the proceeds with you, Captain," Triple Zero said. "On a more generous split than the Pride were offering you."

"You know, I'm regretting rescuing you now," Aphra said.

Beetee blooped.

"Ah, that is distressing," Triple Zero said.

"What?" Aphra said.

"Beetee has re-established contact with the holonet. It seems that while we were ... indisposed, circumstances have changed. None of the bounties out for you are currently active."

"None of them? Not even that one from years ago that no one ever tried to collect on?"

"Indeed, you are not even worth a mere two thousand credits any more, Doctor."

"I'm so terribly disappointed," Aphra said with relief.

"Well, what do we do now?" Tolvan asked.

"I can always use the help of someone who can handle themselves in a fight," Aphra said.

"And I could use someone who can find their way into places they shouldn't be," Tolvan said.

"Like your head?"

Tolvan refused to dignify that with an answer, but her cheeks flushed.

"What about you two?" Aphra said. "Come on, it'd be just like old times. Almost."

"I calculate a 96.4% probability of your squishy organic osculatory behaviour in the very near future. And in the medium term, an 83% chance of what I believe is called a 'messy break up'. Beetee and I would prefer to be dropped at the nearest spaceport than have to witness either event."

Trip stalked off, Beetee following close behind.

"Did you hear that?" Aphra said.

"What?" Tolvan said.

"He gave us a 17% chance. That's ... insanely high for me."

"Well, there's only a 3.6% chance of _this_ not happening," Tolvan said as she leaned in towards her.


End file.
